PPL Electric Utilities is responding to a relentlessly cold winter with its second donation of the season to help less fortunate customers with their energy bills.

Company President Gregory N. Dudkin announced Tuesday (3/3) that $250,000 will be donated, with $200,000 of the total going to the utility's Operation HELP hardship fund that provides emergency financial aid to pay heating bills for families with financial hardship. The remaining $50,000 will be divided among 10 social service organizations.

February's low temperatures broke records across the country, including in the northeastern U.S. PPL Electric Utilities customers set an all-time new power demand record on Feb. 20, breaking the old mark set in January 2014.

This February was the coldest on record in places like Harrisburg and Williamsport, and the second-coldest on record for Allentown and Wilkes-Barre.

PPL Electric Utilities customers used 3.9 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in February, the most for any February in the past 25 years. That's enough electricity for more than 345,000 homes for a year.

"The consistently cold weather prompted us to want to supplement our original $250,000 contribution in late December," Dudkin said. "We wanted to step up again to assist the communities we serve."

Both donations are from corporate funds and not customer rates. In February 2014, the utility also made a donation to help less fortunate residents when it gave $300,000 to support Operation HELP and community agencies.

In the most recent donation, the community organizations each receiving $5,000 are:

• Lancaster County Council of Churches, Lancaster
• Project SHARE, Carlisle
• Interfaith Family Shelter, Harrisburg
• St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantry, Wilkes-Barre
• Wayne County Food Pantry, Honesdale
• American Rescue Workers, Williamsport
• Pennridge FISH Organization Inc., Perkasie
• Second Harvest Food Bank, Allentown
• Central Pennsylvania Food Bank, Williamsport
• AGAPE, Bloomsburg

PPL Electric Utilities, a subsidiary of PPL Corporation (NYSE: PPL), provides electric delivery services to about 1.4 million customers in Pennsylvania and consistently ranks among the best companies for customer service in the United States.www.pplelectric.com.

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